Happy Brithday, Daddy!

Following a simple, yet wonderful Father's Day, we celebrated William's 29th birthday on Monday. His last year in his twenties...yikes! =) I'm almost married to a thirty year old!!! And, I, a mere 27...well, only for less than one month =)!

William headed off to teach Monday morning, thus providing the perfect time for the kids and me to make Daddy's cake. I brought back some cake mixes from the States for birthday cakes and we had the perfect one for Daddy, deluxe chocolate =). While Amelia was still sleeping, a later morning for her, Josiah and I started the cake baking process. He enjoyed it thoroughly as anyone who gets to lick the bowl should! =) Since we are not so keen on the frosting Chinese cakes have, I also brought frosting back with us, so we lathered Daddy's cake down with some yummy cream cheese frosting. The next plan, as we did with Josiah's 3rd birthday cake, was to take it to a Chinese bakery and have them decorate the top, since I am so not gifted in that area. So, with two kids on the back of my bike and the finished cake on a plate, we headed to the closest bakery while I tried to ride VERY carefully with the cake on one hand and two little ones on the back. Miraculously, we made it and explained to them what we would like. The last time we did that, with Josiah's cake, we had two lions and a couple of trees put on the top of the cake, per Josiah's request. Nothing more, just a few decorations on top, that way we could easily scrape off the decorations and eat up the yummy cake with the frosting that we like to eat, boy are we spoiled! Well, unfortunately this time, they layered on the frosting, not only on top, but on the side as well. I am not exaggerating when I say that they put an inch of their frosting on the top of this cake! Now, one simple word to describe Chinese frosting...tasteless. And when we have cake, we want the whole gamut of sweetness, hence the reason I bring back Betty Crocker frosting =).

The story behind how we decided to put what we did on William's cake: a few weeks before William's birthday, I had asked Josiah what we should put on Daddy's cake. His immediate response was "SNAKES!" Yes, his new favorite animal is the snake...thank you, Auntie Julia! For those of you that do not know, Josiah's Auntie Julia has a snake and while we were in the States for Christmas, let's just say that Auntie Julia shared her passion for snakes with her little nephew, so that every time we web cam with Papa and Nana now, Josiah asks to see his Aunties and of course, Rica the snake! So, he wanted a snake on his daddy's cake. I told him that since he likes snakes, for his 4th birthday, he can have snakes on his cake. So, we brainstormed a bit and thought of things that Daddy likes. When I asked Josiah what is something that Daddy likes, he thought a bit and then confidently said, "Computers." Ah, a great idea. I thought then that we could have an image of a mommy with a little boy and a little girl on the computer screen and that would be perfect...just a quick note, since the frosting here is not like American frosting, taste, texture, etc., they can do AMAZING things when it comes to decorating cakes! So, the idea of us on the computer screen would not be too impossible of a task. Well, a few days later, William and I were reminiscing a bit and he mentioned a cake that Mom had made for him when he was little and he still clearly remembers it. He described it as a beach scene, with half of the cake the color of water and half of the cake the color of sand, for the beach. Mom then put a landing craft in the water and little soldiers charging the beach with a flag. Very creative, Mom!! So I thought it would be neat to TRY, my you, I said TRY to recreate that wonderful cake =)! I thought about trying to find food coloring and really do the whole thing by myself, but quickly scratched that idea when faced with the question of how do I explain food coloring. (I now know that I can go to a bakery and buy a bit from them.=)) So, after the kids and I arrived at the bakery, I TRIED to explain what I would like and TRIED to emphasize that we only wanted frosting on the top...but like I mentioned before...there was LOTS of tasteless frosting, but I think we can say mission accomplished. They graciously put the cake in a nice cake box, we handed them the equivalent of $2.50 and headed back home. We dropped the cake off and headed back out the door to meet William at a noodle place for lunch.

Chinese tradition calls for eating noodles on your birthday as a symbol of long life. So, when in China, do as the Chinese do, except for eating their frosting, okay, and a few other things, but noodles it was for lunch. We finished up a good meal and headed on a bus towards Beijing. William had said that he would like to have Mexican for his birthday meal, and since we do not have any Mexican restaurants here in our city of Changping, we knew that Beijing is where we would be on Monday evening. Well, with that in mind, we also knew that we needed to get Amelia her Japanese Encephalitis vaccination soon since they do not give that vaccine in July and August since it is a mosquito carried disease and July and August are peak mosquito season. So, knowing our schedule for the rest of June, William's birthday was really the only feasible date to go to the hospital and get Amelia's shot. I know, I know, not the best way to spend one's birthday, but when you are as wonderful of a Dad as William is, family's health above personal pleasures =).

While we were on the bus headed to Beijing, Amelia took her afternoon nap, but Josiah stayed good and awake, so once we arrived in Beijing, we were faced with the reality that Josiah would need to sleep. And being a very tall 3 year old, he isn't the easiest to carry, especially while sleeping. So, Amelia and I headed to the hospital while William and Josiah headed to a nearby hotel lobby to take a little nap.

While getting her shot, of course Amelia cried, but she was absolutely great! She didn't cry long and was more interested in her cute band aid than anything. For the rest of the evening, she would pull at her sleeve to look at the band aid =). We headed to Daddy and a sleeping big brother and waited for a few minutes until Josiah fully awoke. We then headed to Peter's Tex-Mex and enjoyed an incredible feast! That particular restaurant has a little play area for the kids, which is always a tremendous blessing! So, the kids played away and Mommy and Daddy were able to enjoy talking to each other. Needless to say, we splurged and even had an appetizer of chips and nine lay burrito dip and just plain ol' yummy entrees! I mentioned to our server that it was William's birthday, so after we finished our meal, they played Happy Birthday over the sound system and we sang Happy Birthday as they brought a huge piece of chocolate cake to William. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and still feel a bit full from that tasty meal!

We headed home, tired, happy and so very full. Since we arrived back home around 9 PM, we decided to have William's cake the next evening, thus extending his birthday =)! So on Tuesday evening, Josiah helped me put the soldiers on top of the cake and we happily sang to Daddy and scraped off a ton of frosting and enjoyed our yummy cake! =) It was a wonderful two days indeed and we trust that this will be William's most glorious year yet, Lord willing!